A Pain in the Back
by raleighlane
Summary: Brennan finds out Booth's cop nickname and what it means. BB short story.
1. Chapter 1

Hello Bones fans! This is a oneshot about Booth's cop nickname. The subject was mentioned in the episode _The Man in the Mansion_.

Thanks to **xhio86** over at the bitesize_bones episode tag meme on LJ for the lovely prompt!

* * *

Temperance Brennan stood in her partner's office muttering to herself as she sifted through stacks of case files and other papers.

"I don't know _why_ Booth can't just organize his workspace. Surely it would take less time to create some order in this mess than to hunt through all of this whenever you need something…"

Her back was to the door, and since Booth wasn't going to be in to the Hoover building that day, Brennan didn't expect anyone to hear her ramblings. Let alone actually _answer _them.

Nevertheless, a reply came. "Ah well that's Booth for ya," a gravelly voice said from behind her. "Some things never change."

Brennan jumped and spun toward the sound, knocking her knee against Booth's desk and plopping unceremoniously into the chair behind her. Rubbing her knee, she turned to face the unexpected guest.

He was tall and lean, dressed in a police sergeant's uniform.

"Can I help you?" She asked rather curtly, glaring at him. He certainly could have had the courtesy to _knock_ before barging in on her.

"Is Booth around?"

"Obviously he's not," she said without any hint of humor or apology in her tone. "He'd be rather difficult to hide in here, don't you think?"

Instead of being offended at her remark, the stranger just laughed. "You don't bullshit, do ya? I like that. You Booth's secretary?"

This time she visibly bristled. "No. I am _Doctor_ Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institution. I provide assistance to Booth in his homicide investigations."

"Ah. You must be an incredibly brilliant and patient woman if you work with him." He smiled at her disarmingly. "Do you think you could still give ol' Boy Scout a message, let him know that an old buddy dropped in to see him?"

"Boy Scout?"

"Booth's nickname from our days at the police academy."

"Oh. Okay, I suppose." A memory niggled at the back of her mind. Something about cops and how they got their nicknames. She pushed it aside, however, and waited while Booth's friend scrawled his name and number on a fast food receipt that he fished out of his uniform pocket.

"Great. Just tell him Mike Holliday said hello if you would." With that, he handed her the receipt and backed out of Booth's office.

* * *

Brennan dropped by Booth's apartment that evening to discuss the progression of their case. He'd thrown out his back again, and been told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the office until he was off of all painkillers.

She found him in his darkened living room with the hockey game flickering from his big screen and beer bottles and peanut shells littering his coffee table. She looked at the scene in moderate disgust, sitting gingerly on the edge of his couch to show her distaste at his messiness.

"Booth! What are you doing?" She gestured to the food and drink in front of him. "This stuff isn't good for you! You're taking analgesics, so you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. And these peanuts have far too much sodium in them. An excess of sodium causes the body to retain water and swell, which will only exacerbate the pain in the tissue around your T9 vertebrae."

"Aw come on Bones, give it a rest. I'm in pain here."

Suddenly she sat up straighter, blue eyes staring straight through him. Peanuts…_Peanut_…Sully's old cop nickname. She racked her brain, going over her conversation with Booth's friend. What had he said Booth's nickname was?

"Bones?"

She blinked and focused on her partner again. "Booth. I met a friend of yours while I was in your office today." She pulled the old receipt out of her bag. "He asked me to tell you hello."

Booth looked at the scrap of paper and his face instantly lit up. "You met Mike! He's a great guy; a great cop. I've been friends with him since I was a boy."

Boy…_Boy Scout_…Booth's apparent cop nickname. Funny she'd never hear the other FBI agents using it. Perhaps it wasn't any special nickname, but just a reference to an organization in which Booth had participated in his youth. "Why did he call you Boy Scout?"

The beer bottle Booth had been holding dropped to the coffee table with a loud _clunk_. "I…uh…I don't know." But his cheeks colored and he immediately tried to change the subject. "So, Bones, you've got some paperwork for me?"

"Your reaction suggests that you _do_ know."

"I just…I…do you want a beer, Bones?" he hopped up from the couch quickly, forgetting about the pain in his back. "AARRGGHH!" He fell stiffly back to the couch.

Brennan was off the couch immediately, gently supporting his arm as she tried to help him move into a more comfortable position on the couch. "Are you okay, Booth?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "Actually no, I'm not. I need you to do the magic back thing."

"I'm not a chiropractor. I really shouldn't be adjusting-"

"Bones, please! Just try, I'll sign a waiver if you want. I'll do whatever you want. Just _please_ help me."

She looked at him shrewdly. "Okay."

He sighed in relief. "Okay? You'll do it?"

"Yes, I'll try. But there is something I want."

"Anything. What is it?"

"I want to know the real reason your nickname was Boy Scout."

He winced. "Booooones…"

"And also why none of the other agents at the Hoover call you by that name," she added as an afterthought.

"It's just a nickname, Bones. No big deal. Please fix my back."

"Tell me."

He made a frustrated grunting noise. "The boy scout motto is _be prepared_. I'm…uh…always prepared. Hence the name Boy Scout."

She didn't have his uncanny ability of instinctively knowing when someone was lying, but she knew that he was not telling the whole truth here. "Cop nicknames are ironic. If they called you Boy Scout because of the motto, it must have been because you _weren't_ prepared for something."

He was stunned into silence at her unusual display of insight.

She snatched the paper with his friend's phone number from where it had fallen at his feet. "It's okay, Booth. If you don't want to tell me the story, I'll just call Mike and ask him about it. He seemed like a nice guy, I'm sure he won't mind telling me." She grabbed her bag and headed toward his front door, pulling her phone out and beginning to dial the number on the slip.

"Bones! No, wait. What about my back!"

"We had a deal, Booth. You tell me what I want to know and I'll fix it for you. You didn't tell me, so I'm not adjusting your vertebral column. I'll email you the names of a few decent chiropractors."

He made a strangled sound and cursed under his breath. "Fine. FINE! I'll tell you." He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, looking quite a bit like Parker when the latter was denied ice cream or an extension on his bedtime.

She perched on his couch again and leaned toward him, eyes bright and eagerly anticipating his story.

"I…forgot my handcuffs when I went into work one day. Now fix my back."

"Where were your handcuffs?"

"At my apartment."

She was puzzled. "Why did you forget them?"

"I…well…they weren't where I normally kept them."

"Where were they?"

A pink flush slowly crept across his cheeks and he raised a hand to rub nervously at the back of his neck. He mumbled his answer under his breath, too quickly and much too quietly for her to hear.

"What?"

Heaving a great sigh and clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and forced the words out. "They were hooked to my bed."

"Your bed." Suddenly the light dawned and she giggled. She _giggled._ Brennan didn't do _giggling_. "You were engaging in sexual bondage activities with your regulation-issued handcuffs!"

Booth just clenched his jaw even tighter.

"Okay, Booth. Stand up, and I'll correct your back problem."

He stood slowly and gratefully, thinking that she was blessedly determined not to tease him about her newfound knowledge.

No such luck, however. As she stood behind him, hooking her arms beneath his own and rotating him forward, she whispered in his ear, "So did you _break the laws of physics_, Booth? Or maybe you broke something more mundane…your bedpost, perhaps?" She chuckled as he escaped her grasp as quickly as possible and shot out of the room. She was _not_ going to let this go. Perhaps Angela would be interested in this revelation…

* * *

Hope you enjoyed! I _could_ be induced to add another chapter in which Booth and Brennan have a little handcuff fun. Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again!

LOVELY premiere, don't you think? There were just so many squee-worthy parts!

This chapter has nothing to do with the premiere. Just putting that out there. Also, it does not contain Angela's reaction to Brennan's discovery, though it does involve awkwardness, angry!Booth and everyone's favorite twelve-year-old ;)

Review if you're a cool kid. Or if you're not.

* * *

Dr. Lance Sweets looked up startled, as the door to his office was thrown open. He jumped in his seat when it banged into the wall and an obviously angry FBI agent burst through the portal.

Blinking and breathing somewhat more rapidly than he had only a few moments before, he fought to gain an acceptable amount of control over his voice. It wouldn't do to have his voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old. His coworkers already made enough cracks about his age.

"Agent Booth. Hello."

Booth threw himself down on the couch and began working a stress ball shaped like a brain in his fist.

Sweets checked his watch, confused. Booth was forty-five minutes early for their session and, "where is Dr. Brennan?"

As if called, Brennan walked through the door much more calmly than her partner had. She smoothed her skirt beneath her as she took the seat next to Booth, who didn't look at her.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Sweets." Her voice was cheerful.

Sweets waged a momentary internal battle. Should he chastise them for being early? On the one hand, they really needed to respect him for the professional he was, and showing timeliness was a sign of respect. On the other hand, they were usually so reluctant at his sessions, perhaps it would be better to let this slide and get some useful information out of them.

A second glance at Booth's rather murderous countenance tipped the scale in favor of letting their punctuality issues slide.

"So…it's good to see you both. What brings you to me early today?"

Brennan looked at him, brow furrowed, as if he were being particularly slow. "The Tahoe brought us here as usual, Sweets."

Ignoring Brennan's characteristic literalness, Sweets addressed Booth. "Is something on your mind, Agent Booth? You are displaying classic signs of agitation."

He received nothing more than a glare from Booth as answer to his question, though Brennan spoke up again for her partner.

"I admire your ability to pick up on facial expressions and non-verbal cues to guess human emotions, Dr. Sweets. Psychology is an inexact social science unworthy of scientific inquiry, but you do have limited success navigating its vagaries."

Sweets sighed. "Thanks for that, Dr. Brennan."

"Anytime. In this instance, you are correct about Booth's state of mind. He is rankled."

"I see. And why is that?"

"I can't be certain, but I believe it would be a safe assumption to say that he is upset with the nickname that I am using for him."

Booth crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed. "Ya think, Bones?"

Sweets steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. "Interesting. What is the name?"

"Boy Scout."

"Bones!"

"What Booth? It is a culturally accepted practice for friends to choose short or meaningful monikers and attach them to their friends' identities."

"I get that. But not in this case."

"I don't understand. Why not?"

"Because one, you didn't _choose_ the name, two, it is actually a syllable _longer_ than 'Booth' and three, I really really hate it."

"You call me Bones."

"So? It's shorter than Temperance! Or Brennan!"

"I hated it."

"Well you grew to like it. We already know that I'll never like this name."

Sweets, feeling forgotten as the pair bickered in their own little world, jumped in before Brennan could voice her retort. "Why is that, Agent Booth? What bothers you so much about this name?"

"I'm not talking about this."

"This is a safe place, Agent Booth. We need to discuss this as obviously it could be negatively affecting your working relationship."

Brennan smirked. "The name was given to Booth in his police academy days because –"

Booth clapped a hand over her mouth and stuck his watch in front of her face.

"Bones! Would you look at the time! We need to uh… go question some witnesses." He removed his hand from her face and jumped to his feet, expecting that Brennan would follow him.

She didn't. "Booth is sensitive about the name because it refers, in a convoluted way, to his fetish for bondage during sexual activities."

The room was absolutely silent, but it seemed as if fireworks had just erupted inside Sweets' head.

"I…what? How do you kno – oh. OH. _You two are engaging in a sexual relationship?_" It wasn't exactly a surprise, but he'd always thought that he'd be able to sense it whenever they stopped dancing around their feelings for each other.

Booth's eyes were closed and it was possible that he was praying for patience. Brennan just looked confused.

"No, Sweets, we aren't. I don't know of this preference first hand, it was related to me in the form of a story by Booth himself."

Trying desperately to will his thoughts away from the two partners in bed and what exactly that would mean for his book (he really _really_ didn't want to have to go through another edit as extensive as the one he'd been forced to accomplish after speaking to Dr. Wyatt about the partners) he decided to address the issue itself.

"You know, Agent Booth, it isn't uncommon for consenting adults to experiment in their sex lives. Bondage is a very common method of such experimentation and is nothing to be ashamed of."

When Booth didn't move or answer, Sweets continued. "I imagine that for someone who concerns himself so much with heavy responsibilities and the needs of others, it would be a gratifying experienced to lose control through a bondage device. In such a scenario, you would not have control over actions and could therefore be freed from the worry for your lover's satisfaction and guilt over your activities which likely plague you during more traditional sexual encounters."

Booth was dumbfounded. Without another word to Sweets or Brennan, he stormed out of the office.

Brennan was unfazed. "Usual time next week then, Sweets?"

He nodded and she left to find her partner. It wasn't a difficult task; he had simply taken the trip a few floors down to his own office.

"Booth, I don't think our session with Sweets was over."

He gave her a dark look. "It was for me."

Brennan studied him for a few moments and let out a long-suffering sigh. "You know Booth, if it _really_ bothers you _that much_, then I suppose I could revert to calling you by your surname."

"I would really appreciate that, Bones," he said, not bothering to look up from the file he'd opened on his desk.

"It's just I still don't understand why –"

He fixed her with his gaze and stood up from his desk chair, moving to lean on the desk in front of her. "Bones. We're a team. A damned good team. But when you're calling me by a nickname that I hate, well, we aren't Booth&BonesAgainsttheWorld any more. It's more like BonesVersusBooth, and we all know how that turns out in the end." He smiled.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that it drives a division between us. I like it better when we're that undivided team."

She made a face at him. She was able to see his point, but she was a little annoyed that he'd ruined her fun.

"Doesn't mean we can't think up clever nicknames for _other_ people, though." He gave her a sly, devilish grin. "No one ever said that we couldn't drive wedges between ourselves and our psychologist for example."

She laughed and smiled at him. "It may be challenging to come up with something, after all I am not well versed in popular culture," – he snorted at this – "but I'm sure we can think of something."


End file.
